Custodian

It is so easy. I walk around this city, and none of them can see. They can't see into the darkness around my mind. They can't see behind my eyes. Smile, wave, shake hands. They are the blind, the eyeless. I smile into their faces. Pale, wet faces. They sag, stumble, call me "friend." I smile into their faces, make their sounds, but I float above them. I am a god. I am a miracle. None of them know me for what I am, and they let me live. But they sense it. They fear me. They hate me because I can see. Today I am leaving the building. I am walking through the oily streets, pretending to be one of them. I am my own disguise, invisible in this glowing, unnatural world. Their eyes slide over me without seeing, without understanding. I saw a woman today. She was one of the glass people. Sharp fingernails. Her hair didn't shift as she moved, frozen in place around her mask. But she stared at me as she walked past. Her eyes made me uncomfortable.
At my job I am surrounded by filth, and I clean. It's hopeless, and utterly human. I wander through the shiny halls of the world they have built for their children. Their larvae. They make the sticky, loud little creatures into themselves. I work where this cycle begins. I float above them, as I always have. The only adult in an entire world of children. I can see everything, but they have to scratch a living out of the clean, lifeless hallways.
I saw the woman again on the way to my building. She looked at me, and I felt my skin begin bubbling, melting off. I am afraid that she is not one of them. Not eyeless.
I sleep.
She was there again today. Hot coals set in that lifeless face. I wonder why she doesn't melt from the heat, as I do. I look away, but she turns my head towards her. I am unsettled, and cannot go to work. Instead I spend the day sitting above the city, looking down on them from one of their own buildings. I tell myself that this is my natural place. That this is where I belong. They are ants, clinging to their world, scuttling back and forth daily between two buildings. Eventually, I am content to slip back into my disguise. I sleep. I dream. She is waiting for me. She smiles, her face as blank and impenetrable as ever. But her eyes see through me, through my mind. She understands. I panic, and run to the top of my building. If only I could see her from above, to see her as she really is; another ant, another blind, helpless creature. Another child. But as I reach the top, she is again waiting. She begins to grow, stretching to fill the world. I slip into her eyes, my body melting away without noise. She consumes me, leaves me helpless.
I do not think I will sleep any more.
The next morning I leave by a different exit. I do not see her on my way out. She must be one of them, if she is so easily evaded. I will leave by the back door from now on. I feel good. The woman and her eyes have faded out of my life. I go to work. But she is there; she is inside my building! I see her a thousand times that day. She weaves her way through the screaming, pushing children. She is waiting in the cafeteria, after the rest of them leave. She jumps at me from every corner. And each time she melts away just as I turn to look at her. I am beginning to attract attention.
I see her again as I walk to my other building. This time she does not move, shifting, on the edge of vision. Instead, she challenges me; she dares to walk in plain sight towards her own little nest. I follow. She shuts herself in her room, oblivious to my presence. She cannot sense me; she does not understand me. I am relieved, but I keep watch on her for the rest of the night. Just in case.
She sleeps. I do not. I go back to my building the next morning. I see her only briefly, but she is growing more powerful, more demanding. I sit without moving, still held fast by her eyes. I think only of her, today. And I know what has to be done. The woman with the eyes understands me, and this cannot be allowed. She knows me for what I am; the safe darkness that I keep wrapped around my mind has evaporated, and she is to blame. To keep my secret safe from the rest of them, she must end. I will do it tomorrow.
I have a piece of metal. A piece of metal that they use to put holes in one another. I enjoy the idea of using one of their own devices against them. I walk nervously through my city, the city I once ruled in secret, and I wait for her. I huddle in a patch of shadows on the way to her apartment.
She walks up the street. Her eyes glow, edged with fire, leaving me suddenly as insubstantial as the darkness in which I wait. I turn my head away, pointing the gun at her. My finger quivers on the trigger, and I scream at myself to shoot. She spins and throws out her hand, palm towards me, her eyes wide. The action freezes me where I am. I make the mistake of looking up. Finally, I understand. I look into her eyes, and I see. I am blinded. I lose myself. I fall.